Illinois scholar
elected fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences
James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
(217) 244-1073; kloeppel@illinois.edu
5/7/03
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — James Economy, a professor of materials
science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
has been elected a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Election to the American Academy is an honor that acknowledges the best of all
scholarly fields and professions. Among the academy’s 186 other new fellows
are journalist Walter Cronkite, novelist Michael Cunningham, recording industry
pioneer Ray Dolby, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Donald Glaser, philanthropist
William H. Gates Sr., and artist Cindy Sherman. They will be inducted in early
October at ceremonies at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
"Jim is a highly respected leader in materials research and engineering
on our campus," said Nancy Cantor, the chancellor of the Urbana campus
and also a member of the academy. "It is absolutely appropriate that the
academy recognizes his contributions in both scholarship and leadership."
Economy has played a major role during the past 40 years in the design and development
of a number of polymer systems, including liquid crystalline materials for structural
uses, novel thermosetting resins that can be recycled, and activated fibers
for filtering environmental contaminants. He led the effort to create the National
Science Foundation Center on Advanced Materials for Water Purification at the
Urbana campus.
Among his awards are the P.J. Flory Award in Polymer Science (2000) from the
POLYCHAR World Forum; and the Herman F. Mark Polymer Chemistry Award (1998)
and the Phillips Medal for Applied Polymer Science (1985), both from the American
Chemical Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and
a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the
Polymer Materials Science and Engineering division of the ACS.
Economy earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1950 from Wayne State
University in Detroit, and his doctorate in chemistry in 1954 from the University
of Maryland at College Park. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1989 as head
of the materials science and engineering department, a position he held until
2000.
The American Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and other
scholar-patriots "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to
advance the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and
virtuous people."
The academy has more than 3,950 fellows and 575 foreign honorary members, which
includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. The academy
focuses its research on international security, social policy, education and
the humanities. A full list of new fellows is available on the Internet at www.amacad.org/news/new2003.htm.